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New Stamp Honors 'Cross Creek' Writer

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By RON WORD Associated Press Writer

Published: February 22, 2008

CROSS CREEK - Marjorie Kinnan's Rawlings' old typewriter still sits on a table on her screened-in porch, and her wood-frame house looks much like it did when she died 55 years ago.

On Thursday, about 250 people turned out in the barnyard of her home at Cross Creek to listen to stories from people who knew and admired her as the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a 41-cent postage stamp in her honor. The commemorative stamp has her portrait along with a drawing of a young spotted fawn drinking from a pond.

It was "The Yearling," her story of a young boy and his pet deer, that won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939. What may be the most enduring of her works is "Cross Creek," published in 1942. That book dealt with the unspoiled environment of the area of woods and lakes about 20 miles southeast of Gainesville, and some of its uniquely Florida characters.

Sally Baskin Hooker, whose late uncle Norton Baskin was married to Rawlings, said her aunt was deeply connected to the land. Baskin died in 1997 at age 95. "I am so pleased that the U.S. Postal Service is honoring Aunt Marjorie at Cross Creek. The creek was really home to her," Hooker said.

Anne Gibbons, senior vice president and general counsel of the Postal Service, said Rawlings was being honored because of her writing about Florida's environment and its people.
Rawlings produced nine books between 1939 and her death in 1953 at the age of 57. She wrote about her friends and neighbors and events in the isolated community.

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